Listen, I know it’s February, but if you’re anything like me Halloween is a year round holiday. What most people will only put out for Halloween, we have as our regular decor. I have found over the years that February is one of the best months for picking up scary stuff for my house. No one, except a few of us smart people, is thinking about Halloween this time of year. Everything that was left over from last year has been marked down to practically nothing. Most people would assume it’s just junk left, but I don’t find that to be true. A lot of times I see something I love in the fall, but decide to wait because it’s too pricey. Once Halloween is over the stores do a quick clearance and then the stuff disappears to make room for Christmas. After that’s over they do the quick clearance again. Nothing gets put up for January, so they haul out what’s left from Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and slash the prices. By then no one is giving any thought to Halloween, so it keeps getting marked down until it’s gone. That’s when I swoop in for the kill. Most of the time that item I was coveting is now half the price or even less. The one thing about this, though, is that this mostly happens online. A few stores will put their clearance stuff in some hidden corner of the store. Most of the time, though, it’s only available on their sites because alot of the bigger stores have to send their stuff back to warehouses. Do a search on Google for Halloween Clearance and you’ll be surprised by the amount of listings. Anything from Target to BuyCostumes.com to the higher end things at Grandin Road.
Let’s face it, I am a little weird. Some would even say very weird. I collect unusual things, I dress weird and I decorate my house strangely. My favorite movie quote is, “I, myself, am strange and unusual.” Do you know what movie that’s from? It’s from Beetlejuice. Lydia says this when she is talking to the two ghostly inhabitants of her parent’s new house. I have always thought that it describes me perfectly. My extended family all find me rather odd and have never understood me. Once in a while I come across someone who is like minded and it helps me remember that there are many people out there like me. I have recently discovered a new show and it has quickly became my favorite. I’m actually surprised that it ever got on TV, considering it’s sometimes high ick factor. It’s called Oddities and it’s on the Discovery Science channel. It’s about an unusual antique store in New York called Obscura Antiques and Oddities. It follows the two owners as they deal with buying and selling strange old items. Anything from real skulls to old medical equipment to coffins. If it’s weird and old they probably have it or want to buy it. It’s a fascinating show and I highly recommend it to all of my strange and unusual friends.
I am quite the crafty person, as you have probably already guessed. I’ve always got multiple projects going. My big problem and I do mean big is that I am not the cutesy crafter type. I hate the traditional projects you see in books where everything is sweet and pink with delicate ivory lace all over it. I want edgy stuff which luckily has become a little easier to find. Apparently I wasn’t the only frustrated crafter. I was talking to a friend tonight and she told me about this book called Anticraft. She was looking for something different as well and came across it. I borrowed it and after spending a few minutes looking through it I promptly ordered it. The full title is Anticraft: Knitting, Beading and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister. The title alone is cool, but I do like to think that I am more than just slightly sinister. At first glance the cover is not very interesting and may not look like it has anything in it worth looking at. Wrong. This is a perfect example of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. Wonderful things await you inside. The whole layout of the book is nice and creepy with great photographs and includes knitting, crocheting, sewing and jewelry projects. The book even includes tips and sidebars that will help you embrace your dark nature. The authors also have a website where you can get even more of your Anticraft on. Love, love, love it!
It’s butt-ass cold here and from what I can tell from the news it seems it’s cold most places in the US right now. I don’t like the heat to be on very high and I really like bundling up during the winter anyway. In my office the desk sits right in front of two huge windows, so it can get especially cold there. I love to wear hats, funky gloves and arm warmers, but this year I seem to need more. So, I started looking around on the internet for something to keep me warm on those freaky cold days. Do you get cold, too? If and when you do, do you like to snuggle up to a skeleton? Probably not. No matter how much I love skeletons and skulls I can’t see myself doing that. Plus, how warm could that be? How about one of those stupid snuggie things? I have always thought they looked completely ridiculous, but what if you made it a black one and covered it in skulls? Hell yeah, I would and you probably would too. This Pirate Skull Slanket costs $32.99 which isn’t cheap, but it’s totally worth it for the coolness factor and the warmth one too.
A while back I found these Coffin Boxes and used them as gift bags for a party I had. I have used them since for many things, but I recently remembered a time from my childhood when I could have used them. As a child I hated Barbies and I still do. I kept getting them as gifts and would then find new and interesting ways to destroy them. Little Scary Jane soon found herself in a dilemma. How to hide the dead bodies from her parents when they were the ones who insisted she should like Barbies, like her sister. I had been piling them up in shoeboxes, but I needed a more permanent solution. Being the odd child I was I decided I needed to at least give them a proper burial. What do you do when you have a bunch of dead Barbies to bury? At that time cool little Coffin Boxes were not available to me, so I tried to make my own to hold them, without much luck. I ended up burying them without boxes in the backyard. So, take it from me, if you have a Scary child of your own please don’t try to make them play with Barbies. They’ll just find ways to torture the poor things like I did. If you do at least have the decency to get them some of these Coffin Boxes. If you buy them in bulk you can even save money.
I know you guys will read this and start complaining that Christmas is over, but this little project can be adapted for any holiday, so just shut up and read. On Christmas Day a reader named Sara sent me an email with a picture attached. The picture was of a pile of gifts that had been wrapped in the coolest creepy wrapping paper I have ever seen. I then found out her husband actually hand made it. Apparently Sara is a huge fan of the presents in the Haunted Mansion when it’s all done up for the holidays like The Nightmare Before Christmas. Ryan, her husband, took it upon himself to try and recreate the feeling and what you see at the right is the beautiful paper he came up with. All he did was buy some plain blood red wrapping paper and then draw webs on it with a black Sharpie. Tie it up with some black ribbon and you have an all occasion wrapping paper. How cheap and easy is that? I realize not everyone is an artist, but if you search around online there are many drawings available to inspire you and copy. If, however, you are as lazy as I have always suspected you are, you can click here and see a great example. Now you have no excuse to keep bugging me about the lack of good paper out there. You can just make it yourself!
*Thank you so much to Ryan Bray for creating this and Sara Bray for sharing it!
Anyone who knows me or has spent any time reading my blog can attest to my zombie obsession. I’m not sure where or when it started. Could be when movies like Shaun of the Dead and Fido started getting released. Before that I had very little interest. I’ve never been a fan of the George Romero type zombie movies. They were just gross and didn’t scare me. If a movie doesn’t make me laugh or scared I’m just not interested. When they finally started having fun with zombies I think I became obsessed. Since some of my readers are aware of my feelings I frequently get attacked by emails with zombie links. A reader tipped me off about a book called “Zombie Felties“. This book will show you how to raise (make) 16 gruesome felt creatures from the undead. They are more cute than gruesome, but who cares? I think I’d make them magnets or something like that since they are pretty small. So, come on, get your zombie on and make a couple of these. It may be too late for stocking stuffers, but they’d make great party gifts! Of course, if you’re not too crafty or just lazy it may just take you until next Christmas to make them anyway.
Are your stockings hung from the chimney with care yet? Or are you a lazy elf like me? I realized as I was sitting in front of the fireplace last night that I hadn’t hung up our stockings yet. I went to get them and realized that I’ve never liked them. We got them years ago as a gift from a friend and they are just a tad too cutesy for me/us. Obviously it wasn’t a close friend or they would have guessed that. Anyway, I started looking online for some new ones that I could order for next year. I found a great seller on Etsy that made some beautiful stockings like the one with the skulls on the right. The one on the left that I fell in love with though, I’m having a hard time finding. It’s an Emily the Strange Christmas stocking, but it doesn’t say that on it, which makes me really like it. It appears to have been discontinued as I have only found one available on ebay. Leave it to me to lust after something I’m going to have a hard time getting. Maybe I’ll wish for them to be in my cutesy stocking from Santa on Christmas morning.
Are you like me and have money to throw away? No? Well, I don’t actually either. I’d like to though. If I did I would probably buy this Christmas decoration. It’s called Ghost Bust Fright Before Christmas and is sold by Hauntedprops.com for… drumroll please… $1,499.00! Basically it is a life-size bust that comes with a small projector and a DVD. The DVD is played on a DVD player (not provided) and projected onto the bust to make it look like it’s actually moving. You can also purchase something called a Control Freak Media Monster. This will allow it to be set off by a mat or motion sensor. It also includes the DVD player and costs another $259.77. Not sure why the 77 cents is necessary. If you still don’t feel that you’ve spent enough money you can buy a Blaster that blows a burst of air at you as you walk by for $140.00. It does look pretty cool, but I don’t see myself spending that much money on a Christmas prop. Check out the video, maybe you’ll find that it’s worth it.
After I did that post the other day I got curious and started looking around. I found this Zombie Cross-Stitch kit at Barnes and Noble on the bargain shelves. It comes with everything you need to create three of the twelve patterns to raise the dead. I can’t wait to start one. I just can’t figure out which one to do first. Unfortunately, that’s the most interesting thing I found. Apparently there are a few people out there that agree with me on the lack of non 70s/80s themed cross-stitch. A lot of the scary cross-stitch available is of the Halloween cutesy variety and I hate that. There seems to be quite a bit of frustration about this and I thought to myself that someone could really make some money on designing them. Of course, as usual, I thought I should do it. I already know how to make the patterns, so that part would be easy. As everyone in my life says, though, the last thing I need is another business. If pattern making wasn’t so time consuming I would do it. I guess selling books, blogging and now making jewelry are enough. I tend to start things out of the frustration of not being able to find what I want. Well, until someone starts a company like that we will have to be content with these zombies.
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Listen, I know it’s February, but if you’re anything like me Halloween is a year round holiday. What most people will only put out for Halloween, we have as our regular decor. I have found over the years that February is one of the best months for picking up scary stuff for my house. No one, except a few of us smart people, is thinking about Halloween this time of year. Everything that was left over from last year has been marked down to practically nothing. Most people would assume it’s just junk left, but I don’t find that to be true. A lot of times I see something I love in the fall, but decide to wait because it’s too pricey. Once Halloween is over the stores do a quick clearance and then the stuff disappears to make room for Christmas. After that’s over they do the quick clearance again. Nothing gets put up for January, so they haul out what’s left from Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and slash the prices. By then no one is giving any thought to Halloween, so it keeps getting marked down until it’s gone. That’s when I swoop in for the kill. Most of the time that item I was coveting is now half the price or even less. The one thing about this, though, is that this mostly happens online. A few stores will put their clearance stuff in some hidden corner of the store. Most of the time, though, it’s only available on their sites because alot of the bigger stores have to send their stuff back to warehouses. Do a search on Google for Halloween Clearance and you’ll be surprised by the amount of listings. Anything from Target to BuyCostumes.com to the higher end things at Grandin Road.
